Tuesday, January 26, 2010

The saline ultrasound went well last week, but I am still spotting from the procedure! Not sure what's up with that, it did hurt more than expected so maybe the catheter poked the lining a bit more than it should have. I don't have any pain or fever so I'm not too concerned.

No problems with fibroids too close to the lining so that is good news. I'm glad to have avoided any extra delays due to surgery.

I am now pondering an endometrial biopsy. The RE presented it to me as something that may help with implantation. Some small studies look very promising.

It started with a study in Israel where they performed endometrial biopsies in women who had failed IVF, to see if there was something about the lining that contributed to the failed cycle. Well, an unexpected side effect was that 11 out of 12 of those women became pregnant the very next cycle! Yeah, maybe a crazy coincidence. But still, these are women who have failed IVF, so not your average fertile myrtle.

There was at least one more study after that, that determined the implantation and live birth rate was significantly more than those who did not do a biopsy the previous cycle. It was still a relatively small study but for those of us that are older, we don't have time to wait around for better studies. If the potential benefit is greater than the risk of the procedure, then I'm in.

Anecdotally on the message boards we hear time and time again how success can follow in a cycle soon after a miscarriage or a D&C, so I am not completely surprised that there is something about disturbing the lining of the uterus that is beneficial to an implanting embryo.

The only problem is that a Google search of "endometrial biopsy pain" yields all sorts of scary results about how painful and horrible the procedure was for some women. Now I get that if you have a good experience with the biopsy and its pretty much a non-event, then you probably won't be inclined to get online and post about it. But there are just so many instances of bad experiences it really does make me pause. At the very least I'll be sure to ask about stronger pain meds, and maybe the ol' valium standby too. Or maybe my spotting right now is indication that my uterus has already been roughed up so I'm good to skip it?

Well, I'm off for a long overdue trip to Australia to visit some family for a few weeks. I have been delaying the trip for several years because of the time and expense of TTC. It has been hard to plan anything much in advance around cycles, and then if we have the time we usually don't have the money! Sound familiar?

Saturday, January 9, 2010

First the biggest news. I got married! Well, eloped actually. It was just the 2 of us, no witness, no celebrant. In Colorado, the bride and groom are able to solemnize their own marriage and that is exactly what we did! We wanted a no fuss ceremony, and we liked the idea of marrying ourselves rather than paying a stranger to do it.

The other interesting thing was that I had a consult with another RE at a clinic a bit closer to home. Not exactly in my area but in the same state at least. They are more affordable than the clinics near my home, and decidedly more FSH and age-friendly. It was a good meeting, the RE disagreed with the protocols I had been on and outlined a different protocol, and his reasons made sense to me. No plans to cycle for a little while though, I have a few other things to do first: a saline sono to get a better look at a fibroid that might be too close to the uterine lining, and a trip overseas to visit the parents, who I haven't seen in 2 years.

The saline sono is coming up on the 20th, that's if my body cooperates and I get AF in time. The procedure needs to be done after bleeding has stopped and before ovulation so the timing is a bit tricky. I'm actually a tad nervous about what they may find, I really don't want to have more surgery but if the fibroid is in a bad spot then I may not have a choice.